Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations. Mr. Donohoe's point about learning is also of concern to me as regards the importance of the love of learning. The pressures of the leaving certificate were touched on with respect to well-being. I am pleased to see that included. It concerns me that this pressure can almost knock the love of learning out of people. We must also look at learning, not just for the labour market but for our self-actualisation as we go through life.

I have a couple of questions. My question for Mr. Donohoe is how can we do more to address that so we really instill that love of learning in people.

The IBEC submission refers to the need to bridge the divide between the schools regarding access to technology. I want to ask about digitalisation in businesses. We hear time and time again it is the way forward. It is so vitally important. How much of a drag is it on business that we do not have the digital skills we need at the moment? How concerned are our guests about that?

On competitiveness, how long do we have before we are left so far behind we start to lose jobs and lose that competitiveness as well? How important are the inequalities that are being created with respect to creativity, especially in rural Ireland? We have young people trying to study and do their leaving certificate and the National Broadband Plan says their houses will be reached in 2025 or 2026. How concerned are our guests about that? How concerned are they about the lack of computer science in second level schools? How can we address that? We have a huge inequality at the moment. We will have people sitting their leaving certificate next year who have had to teach themselves computer science, whereas in perhaps more affluent areas there are students who will have got full tuition. How can we hope to create a level playing field around that?

The ESRI has also spoken about the inequality with respect to the disadvantaged areas. We are aware 5% of students from TCD are from disadvantaged areas. Better off parts of this city, such as Dublin 2, 4, 6 and 14 have progression rates of 90%. In Dublin 10, 11, 17 and 24 there are progression rates as low as 7%. What are we doing wrong there? We are really failing these people. That will not only have an economic impact on society but a social one as well. I accept that there is much in what I have said, but maybe our guests could speak to a couple of those aspects to start with.